Gold
by Leeson
Summary: They like that so much better than ‘bruise’ because it sounds more poetic but he’s never been one for poetry and she doesn’t read much anymore. Future LIT


**Gold (1/1)  
They like that so much better than 'bruise' because it sounds more poetic, but he's never been one for poetry and she doesn't read much anymore. Lit.  
I do not own the characters or universe depicted.**

_Nature's first green is gold,  
Her hardest hue to hold.  
Her early leaf's a flower;  
But only so an hour.  
Then leaf subsides to leaf.  
So Eden sank to grief,  
So dawn goes down to day.  
Nothing gold can stay.  
-Nothing Gold Can Stay, Robert Frost_

She glows. In the pitch dark her skin glows; mesmerizing him. It glows white and silver, abruptly interrupted by inky black. She is ghostly; he'd turn on the light, but he prefers ethereal to ill; so does she. When the lights are out, she glows with innocent pallor and beautiful curves and Indian ink; he thinks of calligraphy. When the lights burn bright, too bright, her skin seems lucent and jaundiced and glows with a different endearment; she looks like liquid gold in the ways she moves and sickly timid in the stains of ink on her yellowed pallor.

And she hates leaving him because he is the same, but without the ink stains. Instead he has silvered scars and silvered skin. She counts now, and she counts the scars. A large one on his abdomen where her ex knifed him. One over his lip from an incident he doesn't recant that involved a stripper, a plate of spaghetti and a few too many wise men. In the light, he's depressing for only the moments that he smiles and his lips are pulled back and purpled except for a bone white scar. So, they prefer the dark without any promises or pronouncements or chances of a future.

They prefer the dark without the glittering of diamonds and the shimmer of make-up or the people pondering why she walks the way she does. She fell down some stairs; she slept funny. Never the truth about the ink stained skin and they like that so much better than 'bruise' because it sounds more poetic but he's never been one for poetry and she doesn't read much anymore.

He loves the way she moves in the dark; liquid silver or tainted mercury. It's prettier than the iron pyrite of treacherous fluorescent lighting that lets him see everything that ails her. He hates that. Hates the fact that someone could stand to hurt her and her silver or even the fake gold that everyone sees.

He hated science. Or maybe he loved it. He doesn't remember. But he uses terms a lot that meant nothing then and mean everything now; like trisomy and monosomy and genome and a slew of other things she wants to make him forget because that isn't why. He can't seem to grasp the ink stain on her abdomen that still hasn't faded and the fact that she doesn't go to the doctor because it reminds her and the fact that she never wanted it in the first place.

He cries more than she does and it's weird because she's not strong. She's as weak as a person can be without medical death. But she'll attest the fact that while she's legally alive she hasn't lived in years and each breath feels forced and stolen because it probably is.

Her mother knows, about them. But not the ink stains. No one must. She has dinner with them and wonders why her daughter cheats on her husband with a bartender slash library clerk slash heart-breaking hoodlum. She asks if it's love and everything's quiet and the only other words spoken are goodbyes because the situation isn't love or commitment or anything resembling because in truth they hate each other and her mother wouldn't approve.

But sometimes when she slips into bed beside him and shushes him and just rests her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat; sometimes they fall in love. But not for more than a moment and it's only been mentioned once. She slapped him, cried, and ran away to take a shower. When she returned, they didn't talk and just lay together.

They scream in their sleep. He from the fear of never waking up, and her for the fear of waking to a new day.

Her ink stains are less frequent now. Her husband doesn't hit her—as much—anymore and she visits Jess less and less. She's still silver and gold; fake gold or fourteen karats. It doesn't matter because she's still gold in the day and silver in the night. He wonders if there's a fake silver; probably. But he likes to think she's real silver and fake gold.

One day he hasn't seen her in weeks and Liz, his quote unquote mother, calls. Apparently big-brothers step-daughter is dead. Two days ago, husband shot her world-hurries-in-a-blur-and-there-is-no-space-for-space. Luke calls, too. And finally Lorelai and that means he has to accept it. She invites him to the funeral and for a moment he thinks he'll skip it.

All of it.

Ignore it happened.

Forget her.

Forget them.

Forget everything.

He's falling-falling-falling and there-is-no-space-for-space and the thoughts run together and he's running-running-running and there-is-no-space-for-space and the world flies away on the wings of the devil and he didn't know the devil had wings. He's spinning-spinning-spinning and the hypodermic stings and he's loving-loving-loving before leaving-leaving-leaving and there-is-no-space-for-space and the universe implodes and he screams-screams-screams. There-is-no-space-for-space and his life comes tumbling down. He think of the walls of Jericho and the walls came a-tumblin' down down down and there is now space for space.

He goes to the grave and the grass has grown over and he likes the black marble granite he-doesn't-know-and-the-spaces-are-gone. And he laughs insanity at the epitaph and wails and bloodies his fists on her grave mark and he's falling-falling-falling and Lorelai grabs his hand and he's stopped and human contact is odd and foreign and it grounds him like a hyperactive child.

He calms and settles and she rubs soothing circles on his back and he traces the epitaph with his fingers. _Nothing Gold Can Stay_. He finds it ironic and pictures her in the box glowing silver-and-gold-and-iron-pyrite. He cries and traces and then he sees black boots-shoes-he-doesn't-care and he looks up and Luke is talking-talking-talking and Lorelai grounds him and he cries and wails and screams and wishes for the sting of the hypodermic needle and the drugs in his veins 'cause nothing gold can stay.


End file.
